Erik Jones' Speed Hasn't Really Improved, Even if Legacy Motor Club's Speed Has

Erik Jones has been hard to figure out lately. Although his Legacy Motor Club team seems to be faster this year than in previous years and he finally got his first top five at a non-drafting oval in a year and a half at Kansas, he doesn't seem much faster than he was last year […]

Noah Gragson Earns Surprise Top-10 Qualifying Spot

Noah Gragson has never finished a Coca-Cola 600 before, so it's hard to really predict how he'd do. Additionally, he is now driving for his fourth different team in four years (Kaulig Racing, Legacy Motor Club, Stewart-Haas Racing, and now Front Row Motorsports), which makes this even more complicated. This wasn't one of Gragson's best […]

Todd Gilliland a Decent DFS Option at Charlotte

Todd Gilliland has never qualified well at Charlotte, and Saturday was no exception, as he qualified 34th. However, in his previous starts with Front Row Motorsports, he finished 16th and 17th with this car after starting 30th or worse. With Gilliland's teammate Noah Gragson qualifying in the top 10, it's possible that Gilliland will have […]

Mediocre Haas Factory Team Speed Makes Cole Custer a Poor DFS Option

Cole Custer is making his first start at Charlotte since his full-time return to the NASCAR Cup Series with the rebranded Haas Factory Team from 29th. Custer has been arguably NASCAR's most invisible man as he has contended in races arguably less than any driver for a chartered team other than Cody Ware and the […]

Project 66 Too Slow for Josh Bilicki to Contend

Josh Bilicki is making his second start of the year for Project 66, the Carl Long-owned team formerly known as MBM Motorsports. As with all part-time non-chartered teams, the No. 66 team is very slow and Bilicki qualified 38th, even slower when Derek Kraus in the very similar No. 44 entry. Much like Kraus, Bilicki […]

Derek Kraus Makes First NASCAR Cup Series Start of 2025

Derek Kraus makes his first NASCAR Cup Series start of the season in Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte. Since he is driving for the underfunded NY Racing Team, it should come as little surprise that he qualified 37th, nearly two seconds slower than Chase Briscoe. As usual, NYRT is so much slower than all the […]

Kyle Larson Skipping All-Star Heat Race Should Be Good for DFS Place Differential Points

Kyle Larson missed yesterday's NASCAR All-Star qualifying race while he was qualifying 21st for the Indy 500. Although Justin Allgaier was announced as Larson's replacement, he did not attempt to start the race since Larson would have to start in the back today anyway. The fact that Larson won the first North Wilkesboro all-star race […]

William Byron's Lack of Winning Speed and Good Starting Position Make Him a Poor DFS Option

Although William Byron seemed like the favorite in his All-Star Heat Race on paper yesterday since he started third and has been a better short track driver than Brad Keselowski and Ross Chastain lately, Byron finished third and did not seriously contend for the win in his heat race and got passed by Ross Chastain, […]

Joe Gibbs Racing Speed Should Carry Chase Briscoe in All-Star Race

Typically a good short track racer, Chase Briscoe started fifth and finished fourth in the first All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro in 2023, making him the only driver to both start and finish in the top five in that race. However, he failed to advance in 2024 after finishing seventh in the All-Star Open, so […]

Alex Bowman's Consistent Loss of Positions Makes Him a Poor DFS Choice

Alex Bowman has had improved speed on short tracks lately since he won poles at the last two Bristol races, even though Kyle Larson blew his doors off in both races. Although he qualified second for the first All-Star heat race, he fell to fifth after superior short track drivers William Byron and Ryan Blaney […]

Despite Mediocre Short Track Record, Ross Chastain Surprisingly Finished Second in Heat Race

Despite the fact that Ross Chastain has typically been slow on short tracks in recent years, he surprisingly drove from ninth to finish second in the first heat race for today's NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway; he was even the only non-winner to lead a lap in his heat race yesterday. This resulted […]

Austin Cindric's Consistent Lack of Short Track Speed Means He'll Likely Struggle in All-Star Race

Although Austin Cindric has significantly improved from previous seasons, short tracks remain probably his worst track type and he is unlikely to perform very well in tonight's NASCAR All-Star Race. He starts 16th after finishing 8th in Heat Race 2. In his previous All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro, Cindric actually lost positions from his 17th-place […]

Unexpected Trackhouse Speed May Make Daniel Suarez a Valid Option

Daniel Suárez starts 12th in tonight's NASCAR All-Star Race after finishing sixth in his heat race. Although Trackhouse Racing has struggled for speed all season and they have tended to be slowest on short tracks in recent years, Suárez's teammate Ross Chastain mentioned that the fact that they got more practice time helped all the […]

For Harrison Burton, Making the All-Star Likely As Good As It Gets

Harrison Burton's surprise win at Daytona last year made him eligible for the NASCAR All-Star Race but after losing his Wood Brothers ride, he had no team for whom to race. However, Rick Ware Racing decided to enter him in their No. 51 car to lock themselves into the race. However, expectations should be muted […]

Christopher Bell Finishes Second In Otherwise Subpar Day For Toyota

After a slight dry spell since his three straight wins earlier this season, Christopher Bell had one of his low-key best runs of the season at Kansas. In a race where nearly most of the Toyotas struggled for speed including expected contenders like Tyler Reddick, Bell passed Chris Buescher for second on the opening lap […]

Chris Buescher Has Decent Run At Kansas, But Teammates Outperform Him

After narrowly losing last year's spring Kansas race to Kyle Larson and narrowly losing the pole position for Sunday's race to Larson, Buescher surprisingly fell through the pack and got passed for 10th on the last lap of Stage 1 to prevent him from getting any stage points. He spent almost the entirety of Stage […]

Despite Qualifying Error And Speeding Penalty, Josh Berry Finishes Sixth

Although Josh Berry was forced to start 38th at Kansas after hitting the wall during qualifying, he didn't stay there for long. Berry was the best passer in the race with a pass differential of 38 positions. He got an assist early in the race after A.J. Allmendinger's engine failure when some drivers pitted on […]

Despite Joey Logano's Complacency, Penske Cars Fast Enough For Top-10 Finish

Recent history suggested that once Joey Logano finally won a race in the regular season that he and the No. 22 team would likely ignore the remaining regular season races to focus entirely on the playoffs. However, the Penske cars ended up being so fast in yesterday's race at Kansas that he still earned a […]

Tyler Reddick Once Again Inexplicably Mediocre At One Of His Better Tracks

Tyler Reddick had arguably the most disappointing race at Kansas on Sunday. In a race where most people expected Reddick to be Kyle Larson's primary challenger, he almost immediately fell from his fourth-place starting position with a badly-handling car and was already out of the top 10 by Lap 17. He spent most of the […]

Brad Keselowski Crashes Out At Kansas But Shows First Hint Of Speed

One of the biggest surprises in Sunday's race at Kansas was the unexpected speed of Brad Keselowski after he had shown seemingly no speed for the entire year prior to that. Despite starting 36th ahead of only Cody Ware and Josh Berry (who crashed in qualifying), Keselowski made a lot of passes, driving up to […]

Chase Elliott No Longer Leads Enough To Be Worthy Of DFS Play After Qualifying Ninth

Although Chase Elliott hasn't been terrible this season, he's never seemed so invisible or ignorable before, as even Alex Bowman seems to be faster than him most weeks before some bad luck invariably strikes. Elliott starts ninth in Sunday's AdventHealth 400 and he's pretty much a lock for a top-10 finish as he has only […]

Joey Logano Likely To Look Past Kansas In Preparation For Playoffs

Joey Logano starts fifth at Kansas on Sunday. The track has historically been very good for him, as he won three times there, most recently in 2020. However, in the Next Gen era, he has rarely been much of a race factor, leading only 15 laps combined with this chassis after leading more laps than […]

Ty Gibbs Only Worth Starting In DFS If You Think He'll Lead

After his awful start, Ty Gibbs has been running pretty well every week lately and now sits only 20 points below the playoff cutline, which is really a sign of how weak the bubble is this year. Gibbs missed out on a good finish at Texas despite running well after he got trapped a lap […]

Carson Hocevar A Great DFS Option If He Doesn't Crash

Carson Hocevar won Saturday's Craftsman Truck Series race for Spire Motorsports with relative ease after his similarly-initialed one-time Truck Series rival Corey Heim had a botched pit stop, got trapped a lap down, and then had a penalty for changing lanes on a restart. Although it's not as pronounced as in the past, there still […]

Daniel Suarez Struggles To Convert Strong Qualifying Runs Into Finishes At Kansas

Daniel Suárez earned a rare top-10 qualifying run for Trackhouse Racing this season, and his eighth-place start is only his second top-20 start of the season. Intermediates are one of his best track types, but he tends to do better on the high-banked intermediates than the flat ones. Although he does occasionally lead here, most […]

Will Chase Briscoe Remain Mediocre At Kansas With Faster Cars?

Chase Briscoe continues to be one of the hardest drivers to predict in the Cup Series. He remains a force of chaos and one of the few drivers who could win, have an extremely mediocre run, or crash and few would be surprised by any of these outcomes. Meanwhile, James Small continues to be one […]

Shane Van Gisbergen Passing Time Between Road Courses

Shane van Gisbergen's season continues to meander in an aimless way as he continues to struggle to learn oval racing. Week after week, he is one of the slowest drivers on every oval and it's hard to imagine that changing until it actually happens. 1.5-mile ovals are arguably his worst track type as he finished […]

Texas Near-Miss Makes Michael McDowell Look Better Than He Seems On Paper

After coming agonizingly close to winning at Texas -- a track where he'd never even placed in the top 10 before -- Michael McDowell comes to Texas with momentum and a Spire Motorsports team that seems to have speed on every intermediate track. His Kansas record isn't much better than his Texas record, as his […]

Todd Gilliland Is Consistently Mediocre At Kansas

The good news is that Todd Gilliland has been consistent at Kansas. The bad news is that he's been consistent at an extremely low level as he started between 31st and 33rd and finished between 23rd and 27th in all but one of his previous starts. The exception came at last year's race when he […]

Zane Smith Will Likely Finish Around Where He Starts

Zane Smith earned a 10th-place finish in his last start at Kansas, so he has higher expectations entering Sunday's race than you might expect. He did have his most dominant win in the Craftsman Truck Series at the track, when he led 108 out of 134 laps in the 2022 race. Smith starts 18th on […]